Fresh hope for Alzheimer's

Hopes of a treatment to halt the progression of Alzheimer's Disease have been raised after scientists forced brain cells to rejuvenate themselves.

A team of British and American experts will announce today that they have managed to reverse brain damage in mice by injecting them with a protein called nerve growth factor.

NGF protein is naturally produced in the brains of foetuses and babies and has been earmarked as a crucial factor in brain development.

The latest findings which confirm its key role are a boost for an experimental treatment which aims to prevent Alzheimer's by giving a new lease of life to brain cells damaged and eventually lost through the disease.

Doctors in San Diego have tested the procedure on a 60-year-old Alzheimer's sufferer by injecting the growth factor directly into her brain. A small hole was cut in the front of her skull and five batches of skin cells - genetically modified to produce pure NGF - were implanted at the base of the frontal lobe.

She is said to have recovered well from the treatment but it is not yet known whether the injection has slowed progression of the disease.

Scientists in California now hope to repeat the procedure with six other Alzheimer's patients.

Results from mice experiments by British experts which prove the power of NGF to regenerate damaged neurons are to be published in the respected medical journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Jon Cooper led the British side of the mice study at King's College Hospital department of medicine in London.

He said: 'Findings suggest NGF deprivation is responsible for the age-related cell loss associated with Alzheimer's disease and that treatment could reverse the pathological changes associated with the disorder.'

An estimated 700,000 Britons suffer from the debilitating ill-ness, which causes shrinkage of the brain, leading to dementia.

Dr Richard Harvey, director of research at the Alzheimer's Disease Society, welcomed the latest findings but urged caution. It could take up to 15 years before the treatment was refined enough to be widely used in Britain.

Dr Harvey said: 'Nerve growth factors are large proteins which cannot easily get directly into the brain. 'The challenge for us is to get them to be realistic and effective treatments that can be delivered into the brain.'